After seven years and $18 million, the Oakland City Council last week finally gave up on using a police radio system so unreliable that it has endangered officers and even left President Obama vulnerable. Instead, the city will adopt the same system used by 43 police, fire and emergency response agencies in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

But Oakland declined, citing the cost and an immediate need to replace its unreliable, obsolete analog-based police radios. City officials took the position that the Oakland Police Department couldn't afford to wait for the regional system to become operational.

The regional system has been in place since December 2012. Oakland still doesn't have a reliable radio system.

As the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority built infrastructure and signed up 30 cities, six special districts, three colleges and Caltrans - covering more than 2.5 million people - Oakland struck out on its own.

City officials used a $7.5 million Homeland Security grant and accepted handheld radios valued at $10.5 million as part of a legal settlement over bandwidth from cell-phone provider Nextel/Sprint.

Fraught with failures

But the system was fraught with failures - such as during an appearance by Obama at Oakland's Fox Theater in July 2012 when about 100 officers lost communications with each other for about 30 minutes. Handheld radios often failed inside buildings, while outdoor dead zones, interference from cell-phone towers, even the metal equipment worn on officers' uniforms were among the causes of sporadic communications. The failures that dogged the system left Oakland police officers feeling vulnerable and wary of city staff's judgment.

"We've had an officer with a suspect at gunpoint alone - he hits the radio and nothing," said Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers' Association. "It happens all the time."

You'd think city officials would have been as alarmed as their peace officers long ago at this obvious gap in public safety.

But it took until now for the City Council to finally scrap the project - even as city technicians lobbied hard last month to stay the course and tried to adjust the existing system.

Acknowledging defeat after seven years, council members voted unanimously July 15 to join the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority and authorized spending a one-time fee of $580,000 to join, and $1.2 million a year to participate. Oakland will have three seats on the 23-member executive board.

The council also approved spending $7.9 million to replace its existing radio system, although Councilwoman Libby Schaaf said the city might be able to save $6 million of that if police can keep their car radios. Bill McCammon, executive director of the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority, said his agency is prepared to make Oakland's communications needs a priority.

Obsolete equipment

Meanwhile, the city technicians' decision to accept obsolete radios in 2007, their inability to keep the radios operating, and their insistence on continuing to try has led police to mistrust city decisions about what they need.

"The (city's) infrastructure was old, and at every point decisions were made to try and cut costs and use lesser equipment - and the system collapsed," Donelan said.

"I was here during Loma Prieta, a few blocks from the MacArthur Freeway collapse. My dad lost his home in the Oakland hills fire," said Schaaf, referring to the 1989 earthquake and the deadly 1991 blaze. "We witnessed communications problems, hoses not fitting hydrants in instances where mutual aid was called in. If anybody should be aware of the need for mutual aid, it is Oakland, CA. That's where I start from."

The city has come full circle, from rejecting participation in a regional radio system, to becoming a significant member of the regional emergency communications group.

It has been an expensive journey because little from the old system can be salvaged for use with the new system.

When Oakland joins the regional system in the next three months, and transfers to the new system over two years, the city will become its second-largest user, adding more than 2,900 radio units to a 12,000-unit system.

"This is a huge milestone for the region, for the regional system, and for the city," McCammon said. "We can now go to federal funding sources as a regional (entity), and that's a huge deal."